


Let us not become tragedies ( We are not funeral homes )

by Niahara_Erskine



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Introspection, M/M, art based, post chapter 94, slight spoilers for the manga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niahara_Erskine/pseuds/Niahara_Erskine
Summary: The roles fit them both ill, foreign mantles cast over their shoulders hiding the reality from enemy eyes, masks they have to don as they move beyond all borders they might have known. Soldier and nurse, amputee and healer, a mismatched pair of liars working to crumble a well oiled machine from within.( aka Eren is not the only one that goes undercover in Marley )





	1. Eren

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeyaniraSan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeyaniraSan/gifts).



> Based on this fanmade art panel: https://naeriels.tumblr.com/post/161746726643/aurieackerman-i-wanted-to-try-this-wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has never been one to hide behind pretenses, to put on masks and play roles. Never been one to lie and delude, to claim to be someone he was not. But here, now, caught in the skin of a soldier wounded in battle, far behind the enemy lines, the only choice is to finally learn how to do so.

_ It is often the lessons born out of betrayal that stick to us most, that teach the most valuable truths.  _

It would be amusing, he thinks, had it not been so painful still, the betrayal ringing hollow in his bones even years and years and years afterwards, the looks on their faces -  _ friends once, then enemies, the shift so sudden it kept sending him reeling after such a long time -  _ so self-assured, so justified, as if murdering innocents by the thousands could ever be right no matter what world they might find themselves in. It would be amusing had it not been so ironic, walking in another’s footsteps, taking their enemies’ lessons and warping them against the very ones that wronged them, twisting them in shields and weapons, tearing at them from within.

Infiltration. Subterfuge. Once he would have raged against the very notion, preferring the blunt approach of battle, the roar of chaos in his ears as he leaped through the trees in his gear, the adrenaline burning in his veins, anger coiled deep in his soul - _always there, ever simmering_ \- bursting to the surface in a justified outlet. Pure rage given life, given form, tearing through their enemies without remorse, offering an end to those seeking to destroy their very existence.

But that was before. This is now; a now where the enemies are not mindless titans, where strings are pulled by cognizant beings - _ humans like them, why does betrayal always stem from those you consider close _ \- that banked their hatred on centuries of rancor and subjugation, but did not shy away from turning into the very ones they proclaimed to hate once given the means and power to do so. 

This is now, a standstill moment resting on a precipice, a balance so precarious that one wrong action can plunge them all in the abyss though none wishes to voice the thought out loud. It is a now where he can no longer be a weapon, a blunt hammer tearing through the enemies with the abandon and savagery of those he abhors, victorious movements that he later comes to hate, hands shaking in the dead of the night, words stuttering and mingling,  _ I’m human, I’m human,  _ a mantra he forces past the knot in his throat, makes himself believe, a self-told truth that leaves ash in his mouth as it passes through chapped lips. 

It is a now where he is different, plunged in a role that fits him ill, but is still forced to play, not Titan, not trainee, not Survey Corps member, nothing of what made him before, but rather member of an army he knows nothing about, survivor of a war he never played a part in. Around him people cry in pain, in agony, wounds festering and limbs torn apart, a grotesque painting of war that he has come to know intimately, even if it lingers in another part of his recently enlarged world. 

He stumbles, the missing limb itching behind crudely wrapped bandages, skin tight over the stump that he now calls leg, tendons and bones flaring in pain, seeking to knit back flesh and tissue, remake what was unmade, yet unable to. He will have to open the wound anew, keep the leg from growing back, hack at his own appendage again and again as long as the ruse remains in play, his Titan powers roaring beneath his skin, prolonging an agony meant to find a reprieve at one point. 

The room he finds himself in is sterile, the heavy scent of antiseptic coating everything, pushing the copper tang of blood aside, burying it under layers and layers of acidic smells. White and sterile, like the nurses  and the doctors, so unlike his father when he used to make his rounds inside Wall Rose. The only break from the norm are the soldiers, an unending line of injured and dying, some brought on stretchers, while others hobble their way inside. And him, a part of them, an unfitting gear aiming to bring a well oiled machine to ruin from inside, like it had happened once before years and years in the past. 

He startles at the touch that brings him out of his revery, arm draped over a shorter person’s shoulder even as he is guided away from the line of injured soldiers. He pushes down the instinct to flinch, to fight, the tension is his shoulders bleeding away as he catches a glimpse of the one leading him away. 

“Aren’t you a scary nurse?” he asks, a laughing tone lingering in the question posed innocently, casually so, before flint grey eyes glare at him from beneath overgrown bangs and a voice he knows all too well bites back in a hushed whisper, a response heard only by the two of them, the real truth of who they are lingering in the span of moments that pass between his words.

“Shut up!”

He has never been one to hide behind pretenses, to put on masks and play roles. Never been one to lie and delude, to claim to be someone he was not. But here, now, caught in the skin of a soldier wounded in battle, far behind the enemy lines, the only choice is to finally learn how to do so.


	2. Levi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is not the first role he had had to play, nor will it be the last he wagers. There have been many along the years from villain to hero, encompassing the entire spectrum in between, though he had never wished to try any of them. Roles dictate by life, by the Underground, by Erwin, blurring into one another, bleeding together until there was no beginning and no end, merely a life’s worth of struggle and battle. It is not the first role he has had to play, but it is by far the strangest, nurse - healer - a role none behind the walls would have thought to bestow upon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was always supposed to be a two-part one, but Levi's chapter took a bit more coaxing out than I expected :)

The uniform is starch white, pristine and comfortable, made to fit him perfectly and he cannot help but almost laugh bitterly at the irony of it all as he moves across the hall, his arm draping over the person he had been looking for, a show of support that both know the other does not need.

It is not the first role he had had to play, nor will it be the last he wagers. There have been many along the years from villain to hero, encompassing the entire spectrum in between, though he had never wished to try any of them. Roles dictate by life, by the Underground, by Erwin, blurring into one another, bleeding together until there was no beginning and no end, merely a life’s worth of struggle and battle. It is not the first role he has had to play, but it is by far the strangest, nurse  _ \- healer -  _ a role none behind the walls would have thought to bestow upon him.

He is not meant for healing, but such is the part he assumes in this little charade of theirs, a task chosen specifically for none would think to look for him amid the white clad figures steering the injured away from the jeering laughter and the mocking howls, leading them inside the hospital towards white rooms and even whiter walls where none of the survivors can aim their barbed vitriol at them simply because they had left the war unscathed when others had not.

His touch is not gentle, empathy lost under rivulets of blood and rancor, buried under layers of loss and grief and so much unadulterated sorrow that he keeps pushing down, down, until there is nothing left of it merely to urge to power on, to continue fighting, for if he gives up what right does he have to demand sacrifices of others, what right does he have to look back to fallen friends when his own surrender belittles their death. His fingers are rough, calloused, hands better prepared to grip swords than medicine, body built for war, hiding taunt muscles and too many scars beneath the layers of white clothing. Even with his hair allowed to grow, there is nothing soft about him, nothing gentle or soothing, merely a warrior ill fitted to play the role of healer.    


But there are always ways to portray a lie as the truth, to hide reality under a well woven mask of falsitude. 

So, he learns to hide himself, to cast aside the mantle of warrior and take up that of nurse. Learns to tie the long black locks in such a way to frame his features so that he does not give away his identity, learns how to turn the ill fitted uniform that feel so strange on his skin into something that is his, intrinsically so, the starch white as familiar as the coarse cotton of the survey corps uniform. 

Eren and himself, they must both become liars for this mission. But it is easier for him perhaps, to play his part. Easier because he had never been one to shy from pretenses, to cast aside the mask offered that assured him victory. Never been one to hide so very little of himself, that the mere idea of a lie became unforgivable.

He has been switching identities his entire, tossed by fate from one to another, orphan, thug, friend, squad captain, liar, mentor and a myriad of others in between. What were a few more, even if they are as fake as the uniform on his shoulders, as the cries of devotion the brat forces himself to utter for Marley? As fake as themselves, two imposters ambling inside the enemy’s lair, a foolhardy attempt to crumble their society from within.

“Aren’t you a scary nurse?” the brat has the audacity to laugh at him, the boy’s first instinct to react to a foreign touch buried under faux casualness and so much pain that shows in the dark circles under his eyes, the tense lines of his body and the staggered movements, hindered by the lack of a limb. The truth beats between them in a heartbeat of a moment, unacknowledged and unuttered, a reality both share that has to be cast aside for the time being. 

Flight grey eyes narrow in annoyance, a muttered ‘Shut up’ whispered between the two of them, the only reaction Levi allows himself to have before the spell is broken and they return to their roles, nurse and wounded soldier, perfect strangers having met for the first time in the crumbling aftermath of war.


End file.
